Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org Let No Man Take Your Crown Fri, 09 Aug 2019 14:56:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.2 https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/cropped-Screen-Shot-2024-05-16-at-1.06.13-PM-32x32.png Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org 32 32 Christians in northeast Syria fear Turkish invasion https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/christians-in-northeast-syria-fear-turkish-invasion/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=christians-in-northeast-syria-fear-turkish-invasion Fri, 09 Aug 2019 14:56:53 +0000 http://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/?p=28532 Turkey apparently wants to rout the Kurds across the border, but Syriac population is in the middle. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the dedication of a Syriac Orthodox church outside of Istanbul this past week. But is Erdoğan at the same time overseeing a military operation that could lead to the decimation of a Christian...

The post Christians in northeast Syria fear Turkish invasion first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

]]> Turkey apparently wants to rout the Kurds across the border, but Syriac population is in the middle.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the dedication of a Syriac Orthodox church outside of Istanbul this past week. But is Erdoğan at the same time overseeing a military operation that could lead to the decimation of a Christian community in northeast Syria?That is the fear that many Christians, both in the Middle East and in the U.S., are expressing, as Turkish troops and military equipment mass along the border next to northeast Syria.

Their target seems to be Kurdish troops that, according to Turkey, represent a terrorist threat.

“Turkish leaders have vowed to destroy the Kurds, made up of more than 30 million people scattered over four nations and the world’s largest people group without a country,” wrote religion reporter Julia Duin at GetReligion.

It was the Syrian Kurds that helped defeat the Islamic State group on the battlefield after receiving U.S. equipment and training.

But, as Lara Seligman explains in Foreign Policy, Turkey charges that the mostly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party militant group—the PKK—which both the United States and Turkey have designated a terrorist group.

Kurdish-led victories against the SDF have left them in control of much of the border area, a Washington Post article on Sunday pointed out.

The Kurds in the area are also guarding prisons full of ISIS fighters and argue that if they have to defend themselves against a Turkish invasion, they will no longer be able to hold the roughly 8,000 Syrians and Iraqis and 2,000 fighters from other countries.

If that’s not complicated enough, the area is home to tens of thousands of Christians. Conflict between Turkey and the Kurds could make them sitting ducks, or force them to leave the area.

Sunday’s WaPo article explained the U.S. proposal to Turkey includes a “joint U.S.-Turkish military operation to secure a strip south of the Syria-Turkey border that would be about nine miles deep and 87 miles long and from which the Kurdish fighters would be withdrawn.”

Turkey has already rejected those parameters, insisting on a “safe zone” at least 20 miles deep and expressing a preference to control it alone. The Turkish government is also looking to establish areas that would allow the safe return of some of the more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey.

The 20-mile safe zone that Turkey wants would include many more Christian communities. And many of them are wary of the heirs of the Ottoman Empire, which slaughtered thousands of Armenians and Assyrians a century ago.

Source: https://aleteia.org/2019/08/09/christians-in-northeast-syria-fear-turkish-invasion/

[Disclaimer]

The post Christians in northeast Syria fear Turkish invasion first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

]]> Death toll from Syrian conflict passes half a million: monitor https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/death-toll-from-syrian-conflict-passes-half-a-million-monitor/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=death-toll-from-syrian-conflict-passes-half-a-million-monitor Thu, 07 Jun 2018 12:56:57 +0000 http://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/?p=5839 Syrian children ride a bicycle past destroyed buildings in a rebel-held area in the southern city of Daraa on June 3. Photo: Mohamad Abazeed/AFP ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The death toll in Syria’s complicated conflict, now in its eighth year, has reached nearly 511,000. Over 350,000 of the casualties have been confirmed while the remaining...

The post Death toll from Syrian conflict passes half a million: monitor first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

]]> Syrian children ride a bicycle past destroyed buildings in a rebel-held area in the southern city of Daraa on June 3. Photo: Mohamad Abazeed/AFP
Syrian children ride a bicycle past destroyed buildings in a rebel-held area in the southern city of Daraa on June 3. Photo: Mohamad Abazeed/AFP

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The death toll in Syria’s complicated conflict, now in its eighth year, has reached nearly 511,000.

Over 350,000 of the casualties have been confirmed while the remaining victims haven’t yet been identified according to a UK-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Reuters reported on Thursday.

According to the Observatory, at least 85 percent of the casualties were civilians killed by the Syrian regime and its allies, which has been accused of using chemical weapons.

The conflict in Syria began after mass protests in March 2011 erupted into a civil war between pro-Syrian regime forces and rebel factions.

The rise of ISIS across Iraq and Syria in 2014 further complicated the situation and regional and global powers were drawn into the conflict.

At least half of the pre-war population has been displaced at one time or another, with many fleeing the country altogether.

Turkey has been a main backer of the opposition groups and rebels trying to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad from power while Russia and Iran have been among his main allies.

As Syria descended into civil war, Kurds carved out the self-autonomous region of Rojava. They have generally maintained an uneasy truce with Assad.

The US-led anti-ISIS coalition has been working with the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to oust the terror group.

Their forces have defeated ISIS in Manbij, Tabqa, and Raqqa and are currently battling militants in eastern Deir ez-Zor province where they have occasionally clashed with forces loyal to the Syrian regime.

The Kurdish YPG forces announced on Tuesday that they were withdrawing the last of their advisers from Manbij.

That announcement came a day after Washington and Ankara said they had reached an agreement on a road map for the future of Manbij that aims to prevent a Turkish offensive on Kurdish forces in the city.

Turkey considers the YPG a branch of the PKK, a named terror organization and has long railed against American backing for the Kurds in the war against ISIS. The YPG denies any organizational links to the PKK.

Three guarantor countries in the peace process, Turkey, Iran and Russia, teamed up to help mediate a peace settlement for Syria’s conflict that has caused the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

Multiple rounds of UN-led talks have made little progress.

Source: http://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/070620181

[Disclaimer]

The post Death toll from Syrian conflict passes half a million: monitor first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

]]>